And my bubble bursts again...

I won't be changing the picture above.  At least not yet.

After my thrill of getting Ink adopted - and to someone who works at the same place I do - I get plummeted on the roller coaster again with a text message from a volunteer friend that he was brought back.  After a day and a half.

They said he was "too destructive and wouldn't go in the crate".  This after they promised me they'd give him time to adjust, take him to obedience training, and call me if there were any issues.  Nope, let's just dump him back at the shelter.

I'm working from home today so I can't seek him out to get further info on what "destructive" was and I'm afraid to email him because technically if he complained about it, I could get in trouble for using work email for personal use.  I could use my personal email since he's actually employed by a different company (that provides tech support for the the company I work for) but again, god forbid he claims harassment or something.  I'll just wait until I nab him on a smoke break and will try to be as civil as possible to find out exactly what happened so I can prepare the right adopter for him.

The thing is, I'm worried this may be Ink's 3rd strike as he was returned twice before.  In those cases, it was a small child issue.  He should have never been adopted out to a home with small children the 2nd time.  Now, he could be deemed "unadoptable" because he's been returned 3x.  I've got to find him the RIGHT home quick!

What is it with people?  Why don't they understand a dog needs time to adjust to a new home?  (I've seen it with cat adoptions too)  Why do they believe they're going to get a perfectly behaved dog?  Even if you BUY a puppy (ugh), you have to do the work.

And how do we as rescue folks identify those that don't get it?  People may seem committed, they say all the right things, tell you they're going to do all sorts of stuff.  How do we know when they're not?  Once again, this is what ends up making the adoption process harder and gets people annoyed when they have to jump through a million hoops to adopt.  I could say too bad if they're annoyed, then they aren't committed.  But that's not necessarily the case.  Before I myself got involved with shelters, I thought what the heck, why do they have to make this so difficult, the dog is homeless for crying out loud.  (of course I still jumped through the hoops and was approved so maybe that's still evidence of commitment)  If people get sick of the runaround and go elsewhere for a dog, does that mean they wouldn't have been a good home?

But back to Ink.  I ADORE that dog.  I also know my limitations.  I have 3 at home.  If I take in another one, I won't be able to still spend the time that I do at the shelter while giving my own the attention they deserve.  Plus, thinking in the long term, I have a teenage son who will be going off to college in under 2 years.  Could I honestly take care of 4 dogs by myself when he goes?  It will already be a big adjustment for the 3 I have.  Before I talked myself into the 3rd, I had said 'no more dogs than people in the house'.  If I didn't work in addition to volunteering....oh to be independently wealthy.

Well, I just got more of the scoop.  The new owners went grocery shopping Sunday morning (they adopted him Saturday afternoon). They couldn't get him to go in the crate, so they put a muzzle on him (which he's never had on him before) and locked him in a bedroom.  When they returned....ooh wait here comes the shocking results of that brilliant decision....the rugs was all torn up and the wall scratched.  Couldn't have seen that coming, could ya?  Now we all know that they have those amazing time sensitive deals at the grocery store, so there's really no time to spend working on getting a dog into a crate.

If someone I had only known for less than a day, no matter how nice they had been to me, locked me in a room and put something strange over my head and nose and mouth, you can bet the rug and the wall wouldn't have been the only things destroyed.

I better stop typing now before my sarcasm gets too out of control.